Like
Encyclopedia
In the English language
, the word like has a very flexible range of uses, ranging from conventional to non-standard. It can be used as a noun
, verb
, adverb
, adjective
, preposition, particle
, conjunction
, hedge
, interjection
, and quotative
.
that can introduce a simile
(a stylistic device
comparing two dissimilar ideas) as in, "He plays like Okocha". It can also be used in non-simile comparisons such as, "He has a toy like hers".
Many people became aware of the two options in 1954, when a famous ad campaign for Winston cigarettes introduced the slogan "Winston tastes good — like a cigarette should.
" The slogan was criticized for its usage by prescriptivists, the "as" or "as if" construction being considered more proper. Winston countered with another ad, featuring a woman with greying hair in a bun who insists that ought to be "Winston tastes good as a cigarette should" and is shouted down by happy cigarette smokers asking "What do you want — good grammar or good taste?"
The appropriateness of its usage as a conjunction is still disputed, however. In some circles it is considered a faux pas
to use like instead of as or as if, whereas in other circles as sounds stilted.
Like can be used to express a feeling of attraction
between two people, weaker than love
and distinct from it in important ways. It does not necessarily imply a romantic attraction, but, as in the following case, it does. Examples:
In online communities (social networking or media sharing
portals, e.g. on Facebook
or YouTube
), dedicated visual GUI elements (icons, buttons etc.) provide for users option to like certain persons, groups, pages, status, posts, comments, published links, videos, photos etc., thus displaying their personal attraction, acknowledgement or sympathy with the "liked" object, and this "liked" status will be constantly displayed. Some communities apply a "dislike" option (as opposed to "like"), some even make possible to withdraw one's "like". This has become especially popular on facebook, where people may even post giant 'like' images publicly as a sign of affection. Examples:
The word can also be redoubled (often in a more juvenile sense) to indicate a more romantic interest, often with increased stress on the first 'like.' The functional basis for this repetition is a heavy emphasis on the root meaning of 'like,' which is 'to favor.'
s in pop culture, as made famous through the song "Valley Girl" by Frank Zappa
, released in 1982, and the film of the same name, released in the following year. The stereotyped "valley girl" language is an exaggeration of the variants of California English
spoken by younger generations.
However, non-traditional usage of the word has been around at least since the 1950s, introduced through beat
and jazz culture. The beatnik character Maynard G. Krebs
(Bob Denver
) in the popular Dobie Gillis
TV series of 1959-1963 brought the expression to prominence. A very early use of this locution can be seen in a New Yorker cartoon of 15 September 1928, in which two young ladies are discussing a man's workplace: "What's he got - an awfice?" "No, he's got like a loft."
The word finds similar use in Scooby Doo (which originated in 1969) :
Shaggy: "Like, let's get out of here, Scoob!"
The Top Cat
TV Cartoon series from 1961-62 often used the word in a similar way to the above Scooby Doo quote, as quoted by the jazz beatnik type characters. It's shown in the 1962 Top Cat Annual several times too, e.g. "Like, that Mr Gaff is a real grouch"
It is also used in the 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange
by the narrator as part of his teenage slang.
"I, like, didn't say anything."
Such uses of the word like can now be found everywhere English is spoken, particularly by young, native English speakers.
A common eye dialect
spelling is lyk.
Examples:
Like also has an adverbial use in the construction be + like + TO infinitive, meaning "be likely to, be ready to, be on the verge of."
Examples:
As the following attest, this construction has a long history in the English language.
to introduce a quotation or impersonation. In this usage, like functions in conjunction with a verb, generally be (but also say, think, etc.), as in the following examples:
Like can also be used to paraphrase an implicitly unspoken idea or sentiment:
It is also sometimes used to introduce non-verbal mimetic performances, e.g., facial expressions, hand gestures, body movement, as well as sounds and noises:
See Golato (2000) for a similar quotative in German.
Examples:
. It has become a trend among North American teenagers to use the word "like" in this way.(see Valspeak
, discourse marker
, and speech disfluency):
It is also becoming more often used (Northern England and Hiberno-English
in particular) at the end of a sentence, as an alternative to you know. Note that this construction implies a desire to remain calm and defuse tension:
Use of "like" as a filler
is a fairly old practice in Welsh English
. In Scotland, it was used at least as early as 19th century, e.g. in R L Stevenson's
1886 novel Kidnapped
:
See Fleischman (1998) for a similar discourse particle in French.
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, the word like has a very flexible range of uses, ranging from conventional to non-standard. It can be used as a noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
, verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
, adverb
Adverb
An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
, adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
, preposition, particle
Grammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
, conjunction
Grammatical conjunction
In grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses together. A discourse connective is a conjunction joining sentences. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each...
, hedge
Hedge (linguistics)
A hedge is a mitigating device used to lessen the impact of an utterance. Typically, they are adjectives or adverbs, but can also consist of clauses...
, interjection
Interjection
In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections...
, and quotative
Quotative
A quotative is grammatical device to mark reported speech in some languages. It can be equated with "spoken quotation marks". In the English sentence John said "Wow,"...
.
As a preposition used in comparisons
Like is one of the words in the English languageEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
that can introduce a simile
Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two different things, usually by employing the words "like", "as". Even though both similes and metaphors are forms of comparison, similes indirectly compare the two ideas and allow them to remain distinct in spite of their similarities, whereas...
(a stylistic device
Stylistic device
In literature and writing, Stylistic Elements are the use of any of a variety of techniques to give an auxiliary meaning, idea, or feeling to the literal or written.- Figurative language :...
comparing two dissimilar ideas) as in, "He plays like Okocha". It can also be used in non-simile comparisons such as, "He has a toy like hers".
As a conjunction
Like is often used in place of the subordinating conjunction as, or as if. Examples:- They look like they don't want to go to school.
- They look as if they don't want to go to school.
Many people became aware of the two options in 1954, when a famous ad campaign for Winston cigarettes introduced the slogan "Winston tastes good — like a cigarette should.
Winston tastes good like a cigarette should
"Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" is an enduring slogan that appeared in newspaper, magazine, radio, and television advertisements for Winston cigarettes from the brand's introduction in 1954 until 1972. It is one of the best-known American tobacco advertising campaigns...
" The slogan was criticized for its usage by prescriptivists, the "as" or "as if" construction being considered more proper. Winston countered with another ad, featuring a woman with greying hair in a bun who insists that ought to be "Winston tastes good as a cigarette should" and is shouted down by happy cigarette smokers asking "What do you want — good grammar or good taste?"
The appropriateness of its usage as a conjunction is still disputed, however. In some circles it is considered a faux pas
Faux pas
A faux pas is a violation of accepted social norms . Faux pas vary widely from culture to culture, and what is considered good manners in one culture can be considered a faux pas in another...
to use like instead of as or as if, whereas in other circles as sounds stilted.
As a verb
Generally as a verb like refers to a fondness for something or someone. Example:- I like riding my bicycle.
Like can be used to express a feeling of attraction
Interpersonal attraction
Interpersonal attraction is the attraction between people which leads to friendships and romantic relationships. Interpersonal attraction, the process, is distinct from perceptions of physical attractiveness which involves views of what is and is not considered beautiful or attractive.The study of...
between two people, weaker than love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
and distinct from it in important ways. It does not necessarily imply a romantic attraction, but, as in the following case, it does. Examples:
- Marc likes Denise.
- Denise likes Marc.
In online communities (social networking or media sharing
Media sharing
Media sharing occurs through online social networks and digital communities with a comprehensive platform and diversified interfaces to aggregate, upload, compress, host and distribute images, text, applications, videos, audio, games and new media. As media is shared it takes on a variety of...
portals, e.g. on Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
or YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
), dedicated visual GUI elements (icons, buttons etc.) provide for users option to like certain persons, groups, pages, status, posts, comments, published links, videos, photos etc., thus displaying their personal attraction, acknowledgement or sympathy with the "liked" object, and this "liked" status will be constantly displayed. Some communities apply a "dislike" option (as opposed to "like"), some even make possible to withdraw one's "like". This has become especially popular on facebook, where people may even post giant 'like' images publicly as a sign of affection. Examples:
- You like this.
- You and 17 other persons like this.
- John Doe likes your link.
The word can also be redoubled (often in a more juvenile sense) to indicate a more romantic interest, often with increased stress on the first 'like.' The functional basis for this repetition is a heavy emphasis on the root meaning of 'like,' which is 'to favor.'
- I know you like Sam, but do you like like her?
In slang and colloquial speech
The word like has developed several non-traditional uses in informal speech. These uses of like are commonly associated with Valley girlValley girl
Valley Girl is a stereotype leveled at a socio-economic and ethnic class of American women who can be described as colloquial English-speaking and materialistic...
s in pop culture, as made famous through the song "Valley Girl" by Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
, released in 1982, and the film of the same name, released in the following year. The stereotyped "valley girl" language is an exaggeration of the variants of California English
California English
California English is a dialect of the English language spoken in California. California is home to a highly diverse population, which is reflected in the historical and continuing development of California English.-History:English was first spoken on a wide scale in the area now known as...
spoken by younger generations.
However, non-traditional usage of the word has been around at least since the 1950s, introduced through beat
Beatnik
Beatnik was a media stereotype of the 1950s and early 1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s and violent film images, along with a cartoonish depiction of the real-life people and the spiritual quest in Jack Kerouac's autobiographical...
and jazz culture. The beatnik character Maynard G. Krebs
Maynard G. Krebs
Maynard G. Krebs was the "beatnik" sidekick of the title character in the U.S. television sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis....
(Bob Denver
Bob Denver
Robert Osbourne "Bob" Denver was an American comedic actor known for his roles as Gilligan on the television series Gilligan's Island and the beatnik Maynard G. Krebs on the 1959–1963 TV series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.-Early life:Denver was born in New Rochelle, New York, and raised in...
) in the popular Dobie Gillis
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from 1959 to 1963. The series and some episode scripts were adapted from a 1951 collection of short stories of the same name, written by Max Shulman, that also inspired the 1953 film The Affairs of Dobie Gillis with Debbie...
TV series of 1959-1963 brought the expression to prominence. A very early use of this locution can be seen in a New Yorker cartoon of 15 September 1928, in which two young ladies are discussing a man's workplace: "What's he got - an awfice?" "No, he's got like a loft."
The word finds similar use in Scooby Doo (which originated in 1969) :
Shaggy: "Like, let's get out of here, Scoob!"
The Top Cat
Top Cat
Top Cat is a Hanna-Barbera prime time animated television series which ran from September 27, 1961 to April 18, 1962 for a run of 30 episodes on the ABC network. Reruns are played on Cartoon Network's classic animation network Boomerang.-History:...
TV Cartoon series from 1961-62 often used the word in a similar way to the above Scooby Doo quote, as quoted by the jazz beatnik type characters. It's shown in the 1962 Top Cat Annual several times too, e.g. "Like, that Mr Gaff is a real grouch"
It is also used in the 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange is a 1962 dystopian novella by Anthony Burgess. The novel contains an experiment in language: the characters often use an argot called "Nadsat", derived from Russian....
by the narrator as part of his teenage slang.
"I, like, didn't say anything."
Such uses of the word like can now be found everywhere English is spoken, particularly by young, native English speakers.
A common eye dialect
Eye dialect
Eye dialect is the use of non-standard spelling for speech to draw attention to pronunciation. The term was originally coined by George P. Krapp to refer to the literary technique of using non-standard spelling that implies a pronunciation of the given word that is actually standard, such as...
spelling is lyk.
As an adverb
Like can be used as an adverb meaning "nearly" or to indicate that the phrase in which it appears is to be taken metaphorically or as a hyperbole.Examples:
- I, like, died!
- They, like, hate you!
- He was, like, really really mad!
Like also has an adverbial use in the construction be + like + TO infinitive, meaning "be likely to, be ready to, be on the verge of."
Examples:
- He was like to go back next time.
- He was like to go mad.
As the following attest, this construction has a long history in the English language.
- But Clarence had slumped to his knees before I had half finished, and he was like to go out of his mind with fright. (Mark Twain, 1889, Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court)
- He saw he was like to leave such an heir. (Cotton Mather, 1853, Magnalia Christi Americana)
- He was like to lose his life in the one [battle] and his liberty in the other [capture], but there was none of his money at stake in either. (C. MacFarlane and T. Thomson, 1792, Comprehensive History of England)
- He was in some fear that if he could not bring about the King’s desires, he was like to lose his favour. (Gilbert Burnet, 1679, History of the Reformation of the Church of England)
As a quotative
Like is sometimes used as a quotativeQuotative
A quotative is grammatical device to mark reported speech in some languages. It can be equated with "spoken quotation marks". In the English sentence John said "Wow,"...
to introduce a quotation or impersonation. In this usage, like functions in conjunction with a verb, generally be (but also say, think, etc.), as in the following examples:
- He was like, "I'll be there in five minutes."
- She was like, "You need to leave the room right now!"
Like can also be used to paraphrase an implicitly unspoken idea or sentiment:
- I was like, "Who do they think they are?"
It is also sometimes used to introduce non-verbal mimetic performances, e.g., facial expressions, hand gestures, body movement, as well as sounds and noises:
- I was like [speaker rolls eyes].
- The car was like, "vroom!"
See Golato (2000) for a similar quotative in German.
As a hedge
Like can be used to indicate that the following phrase will be an approximation or exaggeration, or that the following words may not be quite right, but are close enough. This usage is associated with informal registers and non-standard dialects.Examples:
- I have, like, no money.
- The restaurant is only, like, five miles from here.
As a discourse particle or interjection
Like can also be used in much the same way as "um..." as a discourse particleDiscourse particle
In linguistics, a discourse particle is a lexeme or particle which has no direct semantic meaning in the context of a sentence, having rather a pragmatic function: it serves to indicate the speaker's attitude, or to structure their relationship to other participants in a conversation...
. It has become a trend among North American teenagers to use the word "like" in this way.(see Valspeak
Valspeak
Valleyspeak or Valspeak is a common name for an American sociolect, originally of Los Angeles, California, in particular Valley girls. This stereotype, which originated in the 1970s, became an international fad for a certain period...
, discourse marker
Discourse marker
In linguistics, a discourse marker is a word or phrase that is relatively syntax-independent and does not change the meaning of the sentence, and has a somewhat empty meaning...
, and speech disfluency):
- I, like, don't know what to do.
It is also becoming more often used (Northern England and Hiberno-English
Hiberno-English
Hiberno-English is the dialect of English written and spoken in Ireland .English was first brought to Ireland during the Norman invasion of the late 12th century. Initially it was mainly spoken in an area known as the Pale around Dublin, with Irish spoken throughout the rest of the country...
in particular) at the end of a sentence, as an alternative to you know. Note that this construction implies a desire to remain calm and defuse tension:
- I didn't say anything, like.
- Just be cool, like.
Use of "like" as a filler
Filler (linguistics)
In linguistics, a filler is a sound or word that is spoken in conversation by one participant to signal to others that he/she has paused to think but is not yet finished speaking. These are not to be confused with placeholder names, such as thingamajig, which refer to objects or people whose names...
is a fairly old practice in Welsh English
Welsh English
Welsh English, Anglo-Welsh, or Wenglish refers to the dialects of English spoken in Wales by Welsh people. The dialects are significantly influenced by Welsh grammar and often include words derived from Welsh...
. In Scotland, it was used at least as early as 19th century, e.g. in R L Stevenson's
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
1886 novel Kidnapped
Kidnapped (novel)
Kidnapped is a historical fiction adventure novel by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. Written as a "boys' novel" and first published in the magazine Young Folks from May to July 1886, the novel has attracted the praise and admiration of writers as diverse as Henry James, Jorge Luis...
:
- What'll like be your business, mannie? (p 7)
- What's, like, wrong with him?' said she at last. (p 193)
See Fleischman (1998) for a similar discourse particle in French.